CHAPTER SEVEN — THE DRAWING ROOM’S EMPTY CHAIRS

They carried Ben into the drawing room because it had a brick chimney and no tall windows on the southern side.
Mrs. Pike objected as soon as she saw the muddy boots crossing the carpet.
“These rooms are not for this,” she said.
Evelyn pointed to the sofa.
“Put him there.”
Ada came in with splints and a basin of water.
“It’s his ankle,” she said after examining the swelling.
“He needs the doctor if the roads open.”
Ben gripped the sofa cushion while Ada bound the joint.
The storm made every candle dance.


Evelyn looked around the room at the silver frames and the chairs no one was allowed to sit in.
She pulled two armchairs beside the fireplace for Ruth and May.
Mrs. Pike stared.
“Your husband will be furious about the upholstery.”
“Then he can be furious in a dry house,” Evelyn answered.
The front door banged open.
Voss entered with a bundle of rope and demanded Samuel return to the packing yard.
“The last wagon is stuck,” he said.
Samuel rose reluctantly.
“The south gallery has not fallen clear,” he warned.
“If men work beneath it, the roof can hit them.

”
“The wagon is north of the gallery,” Voss replied.
“The yard is not a classroom.”
Evelyn stepped forward.
“He will not go beneath the roof.”
“He will go where I assign him.”
Voss glanced at the other workers watching from the doorway.
“You should return to your room, Mrs. Harrow.”
She looked up at the ceiling.
A long crack now ran from the corner near the staircase toward the chandelier.
“My room may be the next thing to fall,” she said.
Samuel’s gaze followed hers.
“Everyone away from the center of the ceiling,” he said.
The chandelier’s chain creaked.
The sound was small,

but he moved before anyone else.
He seized Ben’s sofa by its wooden back and dragged it toward the wall.
Peter lifted the other end.
The chandelier dropped seconds later, smashing the low table in a storm of glass.
Mrs. Pike screamed.
The chain whipped upward through the ceiling, leaving a dark hole.
Voss flinched backward into the doorframe.
For several beats only the storm could be heard.
Samuel stared at the exposed beam above the hole.
“The south roof is pulling the central tie,” he said.
“The whole upper floor is shifting.”
“You cannot know that,” Voss replied.
“I can see it.

”
Samuel pointed toward the wall.
The plaster was separating from the beam in a straight line.
Evelyn looked from the crack to the people gathered beneath it.
“Where can we put everyone?” she asked.
“The smokehouse is low and built of brick,” Ada answered.
“But it is full of cured meat and tools.”
Voss shook his head.
“The smokehouse is locked.”
“Then unlock it,” Evelyn said.
“The key is in my office.”
“Get it.”
Voss hesitated because every enslaved person in the drawing room had heard her give him an order.
For the first time that night, his authority had become an obstacle people could see.


He turned toward the hall without answering.
Samuel moved close enough to speak where only Evelyn could hear.
“He won’t use the smokehouse unless the bales are moved first.”
“Then we move them.”
“No,” Samuel said.
“You need to understand that he would rather lose the house than have you command him before us.”
Evelyn looked toward the shattered chandelier.
“What would you do?”
Samuel considered the question carefully.
“I’d stop asking him to agree.”

CHAPTER EIGHT — THE SMOKEHOUSE KEY

The smokehouse stood thirty yards from the kitchen on a raised brick foundation.
It was a narrow building with thick walls and a single heavy door.


Evelyn had always disliked its smell, but Samuel said the lower walls were stronger than anything left in the south wing.
“We need a dry path,” he told Peter.
“The stones by the well are loose.”
Peter and Amos carried planks from a covered walkway, placing them across the deepest mud.
Ada packed clean cloth, blankets, and a kettle while Ruth gathered the smaller children.
Evelyn returned to the housekeeper’s pantry to find another lantern.
There she discovered Mrs. Pike sitting at the table with both hands wrapped around a teacup.
“I need the smokehouse key,” Evelyn said.
Mrs. Pike stared into the tea.


“Mr. Voss has it.”
“He has not opened the building.”
“He says the meat must be counted before anybody enters.”
Evelyn placed the lantern on the table.
“People could die while he counts.”
Mrs. Pike’s fingers tightened.
“Your husband trusts him.”
“Then my husband has trusted the wrong man.”
The older woman looked up sharply.
“You don’t know what you are saying.”
“I know what I saw.”
Evelyn thought of Samuel breaking her bedroom door because the roof was coming down.
She thought of May lying beside a broken wardrobe, and of Ben asking whether he would have to work tomorrow.


“Where is the spare key?” she asked.
Mrs. Pike’s silence lasted too long.
Evelyn reached toward the pegboard beside the pantry door.
A brass key hung from a hook marked for curing supplies.
Mrs. Pike stood.
“You must not take that.”
Evelyn took it anyway.
“You may tell my husband exactly what I did.”
She returned to the yard with the key in her hand.
Samuel was directing people away from the south side of the house.
Voss intercepted her at the smokehouse steps.
“That building is not available,” he said.
“Move aside.”
“You have no understanding of the losses this storm is causing.

”
“I understand that there are children waiting in the rain.”
He planted one boot on the bottom step.
“Mrs. Harrow, I won’t be ordered around by a woman who has never managed a harvest.”
The words were spoken loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Evelyn felt humiliation rise hot in her chest.
She had no legal authority over him independent of the marriage she increasingly feared.
But she also saw Josie standing beside her mother, shivering under a wet blanket.
“You may explain your objection when Mr. Harrow returns,” Evelyn said.
“At present you are standing between a child and shelter.

”
Voss looked at Josie.
Then he looked at Samuel, whose hands were still red from carrying Ben.
For a moment Evelyn thought he would strike one of them instead.
He moved aside.
Evelyn unlocked the door.
The smell of smoke and salt drifted outward.
There was room among the hanging meat for every person who had gathered in the house.
Samuel entered first, checked the walls and roof, and began clearing an aisle between the storage racks.
No one called the space comfortable.
For that night, they called it standing.

CHAPTER NINE — THE MAN AT THE HORSE GATE

By midnight the storm had turned the yard into an ocean of moving shadows.


People crowded in the smokehouse with blankets laid over barrels and folded sacks.
Ada hung a pot above a small hearth and gave the children warm water sweetened with a little molasses.
Samuel counted those he could see, then asked Peter about the field quarters.
“Four cabins are empty,” Peter said.
“The rest are still occupied.”
“They may not have heard the order to leave,” Samuel answered.
Voss entered carrying the smoking remains of a lantern.
“The north wagon is ready,” he announced.
“I’m sending six men to the road.”
Samuel turned.
“The road is beneath the old sycamore.”
“The wagon has to reach the dry barn.

”
“The tree is already leaning.”
Voss’s jaw moved as if he were chewing something bitter.
“Are you going to refuse another order?”
Evelyn stepped between them.
“Nobody moves a wagon until the worst passes.”
“You are interfering with my work,” Voss said.
“And you are risking lives.”
A horn sounded at the horse gate.
They heard it again through the wind, a low note followed by frantic shouting.
Peter opened the smokehouse door a few inches.
A man in a soaked riding coat stood near the gate holding two frightened horses.
“I need shelter,” he called.
“My cart overturned on the north road.”
Samuel recognized him.
“That’s Elias Ward,” he said.
“He worked as a carpenter here last spring.”
Voss turned so sharply his lantern nearly fell.
“He has no business on this property.”
Evelyn remembered the dismissed carpenter.
“Let him in.”
Voss barred the doorway.
“Mr. Harrow dismissed him for insubordination.”
“The man is standing in a storm,” Evelyn said.
“That dismissal can wait.”
Samuel and Peter went out with a rope to bring the horses to an open stable.
Elias staggered into the smokehouse, clutching one forearm against his chest.
His gray beard dripped water across his coat.
“The south gallery is coming away,” he said as soon as he saw Evelyn.
“I could see it from the gate.”
Voss looked furious.
“You should leave when the weather clears.”
“I intend to,” Elias replied.
“But first someone needs to cut that roof free from the main wall.”
Samuel stepped closer.
“Can it be done from the north attic?”
“Perhaps,” Elias answered.
“I warned your husband when they fastened it to the old house.”
Evelyn watched Voss’s face.
He had known that warning existed.
“How long have we got?” she asked.
Elias listened to a long groan traveling across the yard.
“Until the next strong gust,” he said.
“Maybe less.”